David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

“That poor girl loves you, you know,” Lucy said. “It is not a simple diversion to her. It is everything.”

“More women love me than you would suppose, Lucy,” he said utterly without pride. If anything, he sounded weary.

“You need not take advantage of them.”

“How advantage? Are they not human beings, free to make choices as well as I? Poor deaf Sophie, as you would style her, is not a child. Her deafness has not injured her mind. She is a clever young lady who knows what the world is, how it condemns those who spurn its petty rules, and she made her choice with her eyes open. I made mine, and I say you are in no position to judge. Indeed, you insult Sophie by presuming to know her life better than she does.”

Lucy shook her head, half in disbelief and half in amusement. “Lord Byron, you are truly an unusual man. You could argue that up is down, and I fear I would believe you ere long.”

He laughed. “If Lucy Derrick believes I am unusual, then it must be so. Tell me, what are you doing in London with those awful people? It is one thing to associate with your uncle, which you cannot help, but Gilley is the worst sort of climber, and his daughter looks like a wily slut.”

“I shall, for the moment, refrain from responding to your insults upon my friends. I am here because it is the only way I could get to London, and so have freedom. Or so I thought. I must get to Kent.”

“To find whatever book you and Morrison wished to pilfer from my library?”

“What is between you two, if I may ask? Why do you hate him?”

“I hate no man,” said Byron, “but I think him an insufferable prig, and he never hesitates to find fault with how I live.”

“But that is enough for you to dislike him so?”

“To dislike a man such as he is its own pleasure. But now it is my turn for a question. Why were you with him? Why did you break open my house in search of a book in my library? It obviously matters to you as well as to him.”

Lucy wanted to trust him. He was so astonishingly beautiful and, in his own strange way, completely forthright. What offended her most about him was his very truthfulness, and, when looked at from a certain perspective, that could not be offensive at all. “Lord Byron, I can only tell you that it is important to me, but to say more would strain your credulity and cause me to suffer in the relating. I will also say that Mr. Morrison is no friend of mine. I may have deceived him as to my feelings, but it is no more than he deserves.”

Byron smiled at this revelation. “I had not thought I could like you better, but I now do. Deceiving Morrison for your own ends indeed. How can I serve you?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I must get to Lady Harriett’s estate, and I do not know how to go about it. I have no one to ask. Except—except you. Can I impose on you to inquire how I would find a coach to take the shortest, fastest route to Kent?”

The dance was now over, and Byron led her away from the dance floor toward the periphery, perhaps choosing the spot in the room farthest from Mr. Gilley and his daughter, who were, even now, straining their necks in search of Lucy. Lucy and Byron stood near the wall thick with paintings, and he smiled down upon her.

“I shall do better,” he said. “I shall take you to Kent myself.”

Lucy felt, all at once, terror and excitement. To go off alone with Byron! Why, it was scandalous, but perhaps no less scandalous than taking a coach by herself to Kent.

“You are truly kind,” said Lucy. “I know not if I should accept your generous offer.”

“Oh, your virginity is safe with me, Lucy. I will not again declare my feelings, and you need not worry that I will attempt to persuade you into circumstances that are not to your liking. You have seen for yourself that I need not resort to cruel measures to find solace in this world.”

Lucy blushed so deeply she feared she might swoon. No man had ever spoken thus to her, and yet there was something reassuring in it. With Byron there was no dance of pretense and posture and performance. He said what he meant and expressed how he felt. Perhaps that made him the safest companion she could find.

“You can tell no one what you do. I may be fool enough to trust you, but no one would believe such a voyage to be an innocent thing. I cannot sacrifice my reputation.”

“Of course, I will tell no one. You will have to manage to explain your absence to your hosts. That is your concern. I can only take you where you wish to go, and do it with all the discretion you desire.”

“Then I shall gratefully accept your generous offer,” said Lucy, already thinking about how she would conceal this visit from Norah and her family, and thinking that the time would come, very soon, when she would be alone with Byron, with no one to supervise or interfere or object. This notion thrilled her as much as it terrified her.

It was at that moment that Norah arrived, with her parents in tow. They looked slightly winded, and Mrs. Gilley straightened her gown, as though the effort of finding Lucy had tired her. Nevertheless, now that they had found her, they chose to act as though all was well.

“Ah, Miss Derrick,” said Mr. Gilley. “Here you are at last. I did not know you would walk off so readily with a stranger.” The moment he stopped speaking, his face drew into a tight line, and he gazed upon Byron through narrowed eyes.

Byron bowed at Mr. Gilley. “Hardly strangers, sir,” said Byron. “Miss Derrick is my near neighbor in Nottingham, much as you are, and as you and I are acquainted, it is odd that you should think I do not know this lady’s family.”

“I see,” said Mr. Gilley. “I was unaware there was a connection. In any event, Miss Derrick, you alarmed us by disappearing as you did without a word.”

Lucy curtsied. “It is merely that the room was so crowded, and we were separated by the crush of people.” Feeling herself blush once more, Lucy turned away. She had vanished for a few minutes in a crowded gathering, and already they implied she had behaved inappropriately. What would they suggest when she vanished, for days perhaps, with Byron? The trick, of course, would be arranging things so that no one would find out.

25

B YRON COULD NOT DEPART FOR TWO DAYS. IT WAS LONGER THAN Lucy wished to wait, but less time than she would have had to wait without his help, and so she did not complain. It seemed to her that her time might be put to good use. Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she needed these two days to prepare, and so she asked Byron if there was a shop in London that specialized in books upon subjects occult. She had books aplenty, but she hoped to purchase ingredients she could use for her trip to Lady Harriett’s estate. She’d spent long hours sewing secret pouches into her frocks, poring through her books, memorizing spells and talismans, imagining every situation and how she might respond.

There was no guarantee she would find useful materials. Any such shop might be run by charlatans or cynics who sold books and trinkets in which they had no belief, seeing their customers as simpletons. If that were the case, Lucy would have lost nothing.

This left Lucy with the question of how to slip away unnoticed, but a few hours of study revealed this to be an easily mastered problem. When Norah and her mother wished to attend tea at the home of a lady of fashion—yet another wealthy woman with Tory leanings who would pretend not to be condescending while passing a stilted hour with strangers for whom she had nothing but contempt—Lucy affected a headache and said she would stay at home. She did not know how long her expedition would take, and she did not know if she could be home before Norah returned, so Lucy concealed her absence with a talisman. She directed Mrs. Emmett to remain behind in the event something went wrong, that she might best concoct a story to explain where Lucy had gone. Next, she directed one of the footmen to find her a hackney coach, which she took to the Strand, and found the shop Byron had mentioned, off the main thoroughfare on Bridge Street. It was a respectable old building, well maintained and orderly, and when she went in she was surprised to see that it looked like any other London bookstore, of which she had visited quite a few since arriving.